That's what happened at NASA's Ames Research Center in California during the five-week partial government shutdown, according to a report in a local newspaper, the Mountain View Voice. A flock of wild turkeys made the largely deserted center home during the shutdown, roosting in locations such as just outside the center's main auditorium. The turkeys fled when the center reopened, but left behind a mess in the form of feathers and droppings that custodians had to clean up. The shutdown created plenty of more figurative messes that NASA and other government agencies had to clean up after the 35-day shutdown ended in late January. Much of the attention that the shutdown generated focused on its effects on the agencies themselves and their programs, and the personnel who were out of work during that time. But the effects of the shutdown spread out far wider than many appreciated, particularly for commercial space.
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